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Archive:Exploring science through fiction

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Revision as of 15:39, 6 January 2007 by wikademia>JWSchmidt (→Reading: w:Technological singularity)

Welcome to Exploring science through fiction.

This learning project uses science fiction to introduce and explore topics in physics, biology, computer science and sociology.

Reading

Paths to Otherwhere by James Hogan - the Many-worlds interpretation and quantum theory. If there are "parallel universes", how would we ever know?

Stephen Baxter's Manifold Trilogy) - do stellar gamma-ray generating events seriously impact the evolution of biological organisms?

Marvin Minsky's The Turing Option - artificial intelligence as compared to biological intelligence. Will it ever be possible to "download" a human mind into a man-made computer?

Assignment Nor'Dyren by Sydney J. Van Scyoc - introduction to genetic and social engineering. Would it be possible to use genetic engineering to create an optimal social structure?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. A common theme of science fiction is speculation about the ultimate effects of technology on human existence. Some authors have imagined that all technological discoveries and changes will be accomplished in the distant future while others have suggested that technological change is a fundamentally exponential process that will culminate in the relatively near future (Technological singularity). Many such speculations involve a role for intelligent devices that might be able to catalyze technological change at a very rapid pace. Douglas Adams turned such speculations on their head and wrote about computing deices of the future that reveal the ultimate truth of the universe to be an absurdity. Why is it natural for people to imagine that there are fundamental questions about the universe that we should be able to answer using technology? See:The Question.

Greg Egan's Oceanic, etc, freely on-line at [1].

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